Party Crashing and Social EngineeringOn Tuesday night, I had to spend a few hours of social engineering. Social engineering is a term that has at least a couple different meanings. The term was originally used to describe interventionist social policies. According to Webster's Collegiate dictionary, social engineering is the "management of human beings in accordance with their place and function in society: applied social science." The term was as a pejorative by the American right to describe Great Society-type programs implemented by liberals--especially during the 1970's.

That's not the type of social engineering I was engaging in the other night. Another definition of social engineering was conceived by computer hackers to refer to the act of portraying oneself as someone else (e.g., a custodian) in order to obtain information that will allow the hacker to access computer systems (IÂ?ve mentioned social engineering previously). I engage in social engineering, not to access computer systems, but to get into parties I'm not invited to. I did a lot of this in 2002 (that year alone, I was able to get past some seriously hardnosed security to get into about 15 movie premiere after-parties in LA). I've slowed down a bit because social engineering is a big hassle, takes time, and is a lot of work that often does not pan out. Tuesday night, my hard work led to success: I found out about a Halloween party this weekend that is certain to be dope.

The San Diego Reader has a column by a self-described party crasher (the column is appropriately called "Crasher") that tells readers the following: "Crash your party? Call 619-235-3000 x421 and leave an invitation for Josh Board." That's seems self-contradictory to solicit party hosts to invite someone to crash their party. Sounds like a good gig though.